“That Latin?” the boy asked. “What good’s a language nobody speaks anymore?”
Alexander felt a chill of relief. “Why, it’s no good,” he said. “Not a blessed bit of good at all.” He added, “He’ll kill you, you know. Anger him and Captain Stump will kill you.”
The boy shrugged. “Better men than me been killed. I reckon I can stand it.”
“You know,” Andrew said happily, “I know exactly what you mean. Half the time I don’t care whether I live or die, I . . .”
“Pass me that Spencer and I’ll settle your confusion,” the boy said.
A second chill, less agreeable, passed down Alexander’s spine. “It’s going to hurt,” Alexander hissed. “It’s going to hurt like hell.”
“Won’t hurt forever,” the boy said. “What were you before the war?”
For a moment, Alexander couldn’t remember. “I was . . . I was a schoolteacher,” he said.
“Bet you was a dandy.”
Alexander hated to think of the wretch he had been. Alexander was born for war, born for a hot life! He had been created for this war! When he drank again the fumes made him sneeze.
“God bless you,” the boy said automatically.
“Well . . . well, the hell with you, you damned dunce! You would bless me? Dunce, you rode into a Confederate bivouac like a man asleep!”
“Wasn’t the best idea I ever had.”
“I can kill you now and dump you beside the road and the buzzards will pick your eyes. They go for the eyes first.”
“If you’re gonna do it, do it.”
In a white heat, Alexander groped for his Spencer, but Captain Stump was there to pluck it away. “This boy provoking you, Alexander?”
“He isn’t afraid of me!”
Captain Stump smiled a sad, knowing smile. “Alexander, a fair number of bluebellies probably ain’t. You got to get used to it. Baxter, tie this boy to that white pine over there and keep an eye on him. Alexander, if you got any notion of going to him after we’re asleep like you did that Federal we caught at New Market, I want you to think again. Baxter, you heard what I said. If Alexander comes creepin’ around, put a ball in him.”
“My pleasure, Captain.”
“What you did to that man, Alexander, turned my stomach. I never seen such a goddamned mess in my life.”
Alexander curled up. His brain was tinted red and his mental pictures were successive red washes like blood coursing down a windowpane. In Rome they knew what to do with insolent prisoners. They filled their mouths with boiling lead! Alexander pictured the ladle filled with melted-down minié balls, the rags he’d wrap around the handle so he wouldn’t burn himself, the odor of the molten lead stinging his nose, and the prisoner’s mouth pried open, the tilt of the ladle . . .
Cuddling the bottle to his chest, Alexander went to sleep. In the middle of the night he sat bolt upright to vomit, and as soon as his throat stopped convulsing he swallowed whiskey to kill the taste. He was awfully tired but wide awake.
Alexander was half sitting on his scabbarded knife, and the belt pulled at his stomach. Why couldn’t he ever get comfortable? The campfire was sullen embers and the moon lit the clearing with pale clotted light. Head on chest, the courier was slumped against his pine tree.
How angry would Captain Stump be? If Alexander was quick, there wouldn’t be much noise. Then he’d slip away, and after a week or so, after Stump had a chance to cool down, he’d return, like the Prodigal Son.
No! No place Alexander had been ever wanted him back. If Alexander had been the Prodigal Son, they never would have killed the fatted calf.
Baxter stepped out of the shadows. “What’s the trouble, Professor? Lose your nerve? I kinda hoped you’d try for the boy. Ollie and me got a bet which of us kills you.”
The ambush was atop a rise where the Federal mules would be pulling hard and the road too narrow to turn. Ollie and most of the rangers hid in cedars at the bottom of the hill; Captain Stump, Alexander, and Baxter waited behind a horse barn at the top. They’d lashed the Vermont courier to a locust tree beside the road and gagged him with his own shirtsleeve.
About ten that morning, the Federals came into sight, two cavalrymen at the head, another pair at the rear, outriders who drew in when the wagons started up the hill.
“I thought you said there’d be ten wagons,” Captain Stump whispered hoarsely.
“Eight’s plenty,” Alexander said. “If that boy keeps working those ropes, he’ll get loose.”
Teamsters cracked whips and cursed midmorning curses.
The Federal officer’s waxed black mustache was too fierce for his years. The veteran sergeant at his side kept his eyes roving.
The captured courier made no movement, but the mustachioed officer spotted him and was dismounting, even as his sergeant called, “Sir! Have a care!”
The sergeant was lifting his carbine when Captain Stump emptied his saddle. Baxter waited until the officer got one foot in the stirrup before he killed him. Partisan rangers crashed into the rear guard, those Federals who raised their hands in surrender were cut down, teamsters abandoned their wagons or whipped their teams off the road, where they upset, and Captain Stump and Baxter rode down the train shooting all those who did not flee into the brush.
Alexander killed the tied courier over and over again.
IN SHADY HOLLYWOOD
RICHMOND, VIRGINIA
JULY 24, 1864
“ ‘WITH THE ANGELS now.’ ” Sallie traced the blurred inscription on the sandstone tombstone. “After we are gone, will people wonder about us? Will those who come when we are gone think us quaint? Will they wonder why we wear hoops?”
“You don’t,” Duncan Gatewood lazily took exception.
“Like the Brethren women, I am excused from hoops. Their exemption is from religious principle, mine occupational. Perhaps my attire must be drab, but it should not billow like a sail in the wind. Duncan, will they wear hoops?”
Duncan rolled over and plucked a blade of grass. “I predict . . . they will. Yes, I’m sure of it.”
Summer had been hot and dry, but vegetation which elsewhere had yellowed flourished in the deep shade of Hollywood Cemetery. Hollywood was popular with courting couples, who strolled its leafy avenues with chaperons a courteous pace behind. Duncan and Sallie reclined beside an eighteenth-century grave beneath the shade of a giant chestnut.
There weren’t many trees in the new part, where dirt paths connected long rows of fresh mounds, each with its numbered unpainted wooden cross. Mourners, mostly old people and stunned children, visited there. Courting couples would rather stroll where old trees and green shade made death beautiful.
Eyes half shut, Duncan sprawled against the headstone. “You are in better spirits these days.”
“It is a new thing with me, Duncan, and tender. Please do not mock me.”
He leaned forward. “Oh, no, dearest girl. I am pleased beyond telling.” He laid his hand upon hers.
“I think I was ashamed. To continue on when so many who were so brave have been translated.” She fell silent as a cortege turned into the new section. An old man drove a rickety farmer’s wagon carrying an unpainted coffin, and two women walked behind. Other mourners stepped aside incuriously.
Duncan said, “Mother writes that our Leona is failing. Her strength is less every day.”
“Poor dear Leona! All she ever hoped for in this world was to be loved.”
“She had Catesby for a time.” Duncan forced a smile. “You look pert this morning, my Sallie. Where did you find that yellow rose for your hair?”
“I committed theft from a flowering bush on Franklin Street. Oh, Duncan, we must seize what pleasure we can. Life is in no way improved by despair!”
Duncan grinned at her. “Of course.” He angled his neck to examine the leafy canopy overhead. “I go tomorrow to Scottsville. Captain Pickering’s father has a plantation there, and according to the captain, his father greatly admires General Lee and poss
esses a thousand bushels of last season’s corn. Unless we get some rain while this year’s corn is tasseling, the crop will be poor.”
“God will provide.”
“That may be,” Duncan said. “Meanwhile I put my faith in Mr. Pickering. His plantation is near the canal, so it’d be no work at all bringing it to Richmond. Although General Grant has only besieged us since May, it seems forever.”
“It would be pleasant to leave Richmond. I wish I could go.”
“When was the last time you were in the countryside?”
Sallie’s eyes brimmed. “No, no, I’ll be all right. I hate my tears! It is commendable to mourn our poor slain boys, contemptible to weep because poor Sallie hasn’t lately picnicked in the countryside.”
“Perhaps . . .”
“Duncan, you know I cannot. Soon Grant will make another attack, and I must be at Winder when the ambulances arrive.”
“You are as much imprisoned . . .”
“Do not say that, Duncan! It is not true! I am where I wish to be. It is not uncommon for some boy to recognize me and take heart from my presence. Last week a boy was brought in shot through the neck; it is his fourth time at Winder, and though he could not speak I am sure he recognized me.”
Duncan sighed. “I wish I could be as confident I am doing my duty. The feeblest militia officer could manage my job, and we lack experienced officers. I’ve asked General Mahone to let me go back to the lines, but he won’t hear of it. Some fellows say when a man loses a limb, he loses his mettle, but I don’t think that’s so. Sally, consider our one-armed, one-legged generals. Our drums cannot sound attack until our generals are tightly strapped to their horses!”
Sallie covered her mouth. “I should not laugh, I should not,” and her eyes widened as she giggled into her palm. “It was the image in my mind,” she said, “of the flurry at army headquarters as General Hood, Ewell, and the others are attached to their steeds. I am sorry. I know it cannot be funny to you.” Sallie brushed grass from her dress. “Come, let us stroll. If we stay in this bower any longer, I’ll surely fall asleep.”
They walked side by side, Duncan carrying their wicker picnic basket. “Duncan, what are your hopes when this war is over? Will you return to Stratford?”
“All that seems so long ago. I was a boy.”
“And now that you are an ancient?”
He smiled. “It seems silly. But I’m more at ease with the graybeards of forty and fifty who command our divisions than with the youngsters enlisting today. Mother writes that Thomas Byrd is determined to join up.”
“Oh dear.”
“We boys all believed that war was a swift path to glory, and sometimes it’s true. Pelham, the gallant Pelham, was twenty-three when he died.”
“And if he hadn’t died, Pelham would be twenty-four and perhaps wed!” Sallie returned hotly.
“Don’t fear for me, Miss Sallie.” Duncan smiled. “These days I reserve all my gallantry for the ladies. One lady, anyway.”
Blushing, Sallie turned away. “The footwall of that grand tombstone will serve us as table,” she said. “It is well in shade.”
Duncan examined the epitaph. “This is President Monroe’s grave,” he announced.
Sallie spread out a napkin upon which she laid delicacies. “I believe the gentleman has quite the loveliest view in Richmond.”
Duncan rummaged through the basket. “Eggs, bread, garden radishes. Few Federal generals will dine so well as this.”
Sallie made a face. “Must we always refer to the war? Can we not enjoy one outing free of it?”
“Tell me, Miss Sallie, where did you get that fetching bonnet? It is new to me, I swear.”
“A boy’s sister gave it me in gratitude for easing his suffering.”
“Yes,” Duncan said. “By all means let’s not talk about the war. That bird there, over the river, is that an eagle?”
Sallie giggled. “I believe it is a vulture, Duncan. But it is not a warlike vulture.”
“I wonder what we’ll be like when this is over. I wonder will we ask each other, ‘Where were you the day of Gaines’s Mill, or Chancellorsville, or Cold Harbor?”
Sallie said, “The convalescent who boiled our eggs has a vat large enough for dozens at a time and a slotted ladle to retrieve them. One might imagine he would mistake them, but he never does. When Surgeon Lane orders eggs soft-boiled for a patient, soft-boiled is how they come. When I request hard-boiled for our picnic, they are hard-boiled. Duncan, what will become of us? I am becoming a skilled hospital matron, a skill I hope never to employ afterward. And you are becoming expert at extracting grain from reluctant patriots.”
“I’ll raise horses.” Duncan took an egg from the basket. “Sally, I dream about horses—foals on spring pasture, horses like Gypsy, fiery horses, sulky ones, horses that never reckon the cost. Our old neighbor Andrew Seig was famous for his horses.” He gave Sallie his egg. “Maybe I can break horses better than I can peel this egg.”
“I could learn to do it.”
“A woman horsebreaker? Sallie!”
“Who could object were I your wife?”
Duncan turned his face away. “Dearest Sallie. You could do better than me.”
“You forget, I have been married to a . . . whole man, and a choice between him and you is not so difficult.” She blushed. “Forgive me, Duncan, for being forward. Entranced by your dream, I forgot myself.”
Duncan seized on this change of course. “Some say the grass in the western territories makes such growth cattlemen make no provision for winter—their cows can paw through snow for their forage.”
“And in this new land, might not a woman become a horsebreaker?”
“Now Sallie . . .”
“Would fashion require she wear hoops?”
“Sally, you used to be such a pleasant, agreeable woman.”
“La Belle Dame Sans Merci, that’s me.” Sallie laughed.
“Lincoln’s Homestead Act allows any man to assert a claim to one hundred and sixty acres.”
“But Duncan, we are not citizens of that country.”
“Sometimes I forget,” Duncan said.
Sallie quickly touched his hand. “Did I mock you? I did not mean to; I meant only to amuse. Yours is a beautiful dream. Nay, call it a plan. But what of Stratford? Surely, after the war, Virginia will need good horses.”
He looked away. “I suppose.”
Hollywood’s shady silence rang in their ears. A cardinal fluffed its wings in a hemlock’s branches.
“Duncan, I had come to think of my life as something that happened when I lived with Uther and Opal and Jesse: that was my Golden Age, never to be reclaimed. Though I do dearly love horses, I am joking with you, Duncan, about becoming a horsebreaker, and my forwardness is only to make you smile.
“Marry whom you will, dear Duncan. But you should have seen your face! When I proposed, your face fell into bewilderment, and when I hinted we might rear horses in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains, you turned entirely pale. Duncan”—Sallie made a grand gesture—“I release you from the promises you never quite made, those vows you have always avoided. I leave you to your own life, your undoubtedly well-mannered wife, who will think nothing of wearing hoops from sunup to sundown and may well wear them into the marital bed. I give you leave to go west, abandon friends and family, and slaughter wild Indians to your heart’s content as you eke out a miserable living in the wilderness!”
Carefully Duncan folded napkins and laid them neatly at the bottom of the basket. The jug they had shared he set atop. He asked, “What shall I bring from the countryside? Pickering’s father is supposed to be a great ham curer, and the peaches will be ripening.”
“Nothing,” she said. “Winder Hospital provides all I require.”
“Some cloth, perhaps? Some mills are still operating in Scottsville.”
Her look became most somber, and she lowered her eyes demurely. “A hoop?” she inquired.
“A what?”
“Since a hoop is important to you, I shall learn to wear one. I must no longer embarrass you.”
“What makes you think you do?” Duncan was honestly puzzled. “Why would I give a . . . a . . . drat about women’s hoops?”
“But Duncan . . .” Tears came to her eyes. “There is something wrong between us, and nothing I do seems to right it.”
He took her hand. “Sallie, Sallie. There is nothing wrong, nothing at all. Will you marry me?”
“Oh, no. Oh, I don’t know.”
He pressed his lips to hers in token.
After more tendernesses, she drew away from him, shaken. “Oh, Duncan,” she whispered, “I do not know. You must promise me you will not die.”
MASTER AND MAN
ELLIOTT’S SALIENT, NEAR PETERSBURG, VIRGINIA
JULY 29, 1864
“WHEELHORSE!” THE CAPTAIN grinned. “Blessed if you ain’t a major now! Where’d you lose the wing?”
“Cadet Spaulding! What in the world?”
The former roommates grinned and shook hands vigorously. “You never know. You never know. It’s got to the point where I hate to ask after old friends.” Spaulding wagged his head gloomily. “Preston, Billy Smith, MacIntyre . . .”
“We lost MacIntyre in the valley in ’62. How long ago it seems. But you, Spaulding . . . ?”
Dusk at General Lee’s headquarters. A fine old plantation house beside an enormous magnolia tree. Couriers came, officers gossiped around a campfire before Lee’s modest field tent. Bats swooped and nighthawks uttered uncanny cries.
“Dear Cousin Hill keeps me under his wing—which means we are always where it’s hot. Father says my present horse is positively the last he’ll contribute, that if I can’t keep this one alive I will be riding a mule. I tell Pa mules won’t stand up to musketry, and Pa says he had previously believed a man smarter than a mule but now has doubts. Can you loan me five hundred?”
Duncan turned his pockets inside out.
“I’m to go on furlough Monday,” Spaulding said. “Papers all signed, but I’ve only fifty dollars to my name. You sure you don’t have a gold piece squirreled away? Twenty blessed days at home, regaling the prettiest girl in the country with yarns of my derring-do. I’ll pay you back one day, you know. Say, wasn’t that Kernstown fight the damnedest thing? Early taught General Crook a thing or two.”
Jacob's Ladder: A Story of Virginia During the War Page 50
